Heat 1 (Heat: Master Chefs #1) Read Online Free PDF

but as she started to walk down the aisles passing a sheet to every
student, I realized what she wanted.
    We
were to write down the last five dishes we’d cooked.  She wanted to know where
we stood in the kitchen.
    Well,
that was easy enough, I thought.  Okay, let’s start with a pot au feu last Thursday, then I had some pasta with seared scallops in a white wine sauce
the Monday before that, and a few days ago I made a delicious, fabulous grilled
salmon with a mustard crunch over wild rice.  Then what?  Let’s see.  I had a
burger a few days before that, then had dinner at that crappy restaurant,
grabbed a pizza on the way to the dorm… Oh, yeah, that braised brisket.  That
was great.
    A
string of students had already begun to line up in front of Lilly’s desk to
hand in their list of dishes and I got up to get in line.  It was funny how
nervous I felt as I slowly approached her.  I was apprehensive, as if what I’d
written on my list was of the utmost importance.  I wanted to impress her. 
Damn it.  Was what I’d put down enough?  Stretching to my full height, I
glanced over the shoulder of the guy in front of me; pigeons aux petits pois,
navarin de homard, fricassée de volailles aux morilles … Shit.  Where was
this guy from?  And more importantly, what was he doing in a beginner’s class?
    I
had to go back and add something… change something.  My list was so goddamned
unimpressive.
    “Yes,
Bobby,” Lilly said as the guy in front of me walked off.
    “I
didn’t know you were going to be my teacher.”  I knew, without a doubt, that I
sounded exactly like a seven year old.
    “I
guess I should have suspected you’d be one of my students.”  Her smile was warm
and genuine, but I could have sworn her eyes sparkled with interest.  “Are you
going to hand in your list?”
    “Um,
I… I haven’t really cooked much these past…  You know; new country, new
residence, new language.”
    “That’s
okay.  It’s not a test, Bobby.  It’s just a quick and easy way to evaluate
where each student is situated.”
    And
where am I situated?  I wanted to say.  At the bottom of the heap?
    “You’re
awfully young to be teaching, aren’t you?”  I said as I handed her the list.
    “I
guess you could say that.  Not a lot of twenty year olds teach other twenty
year olds, right?”
    Nodding
like an idiot, I grinned.  “So how d’you land this gig?”
    Scrutinizing
my page, she nodded as she read.  “It was quite unexpected.  At the last minute
the teacher who’d been hired to teach this class decided he wanted to throw
himself into a new bistro, so he quit.  They didn’t have anyone else on such
short notice, so, since I have a bit of time between lab experiments, they asked
if I could fill in.”
    “Oh,
good.”
    She
looked over the page at me and tilted her head to the side in a silent
question.
    “I
mean, it’s just that… well, if you're officially my teacher… it could be
awkward, but if you're not…  If you're just a substitute…”  Hell, I was making
such a mess of this.  “Like, maybe we could go out sometimes.”
    Setting
the page down on her desk, she looked at me with the strangest expression. 
You’d think I’d grown antlers.  “Like a date?” she finally said.
    “Yeah,
like a date.”  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone on an actual date,
but the idea suited me.  “I think I would really like to take my time with
you.  You know, the whole nine yards; dinner, movie… maybe some dancing.  I’m
usually a lot quicker to get to the serious business, but I want to take the
slow road with you instead of rushing to do the nasty.”  I bit my lower lip for
emphasis.  It always drove the girls wild.
    “Do
the what?”  Her lips parted in horror and her eyes went wide with astonishment
as she glared at me.
    “Oh,
don’t worry about sex for now.  I can easily wait until our second or third
date.  It’ll make it all the more exciting,